Welcome to the night shift. The best and worst of life as seen through the eyes of an ER Trauma nurse.

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Catching Up

So its been a long few days. I'm averaging something like 56 hours/week between the ER and ICU. The max a nurse can work at my hospital is 60/week. At 60 I turn into a pumpkin and spend all of my non-work hours in a corner in a coma, so 56 will do!

Took care of a guy we refer to as 'The Amoeba' in the ICU. I think I mentioned him a while back. He was beat over the head with a fire extinguisher. Well, now he is about the most pitiful thing I have seen. Only one eye opens, he will withdraw from pain if you pinch him, he has a trach (hole in throat to breathe) that can shoot goo over 7 feet (GROSS) and a PEG tube (tube that goes into the stomach to feed) that oozes gastric contents on his stomach and has given him a burn on his skin from the acid. All in all a sad sad case. He has a teenage son and a pretty rough family so who knows what will happen to him.

The ER has been a touch more interesting. I took care of a young lady with irregular bleeding. She has a 6 month old at home and several other kids. We sent her to the bathroom for a urine sample and an umbilical cord came out. She ended up delivering a 20 weeker who was dead when she delivered him. We do have to take care of the stillborns too. There is documentation and measurements that have to be charted as well as comfort the mom and allow her to see, take pictures with and hold the infant if she wants. This one went upstairs and crashed the next day. She got 17 liters of fluid, blood products and them had fluid back up into her lungs. They were unable to get her intubated so she had a n emergency cric done at the bedside. I went to visit her in the ICU. She was doing ok..... but it was so very sad to think of this poor person's fate.

The next night in the ER I had a heart attack patient code on me. Fortunately, we had the heart monitor on him and shocked him (I didn't yell clear.... I think I yelled "shocking, get the hell off") and he came right back. The cardiac cath people roto-rootered his coronary arteries and last I heard he is alive and doing well.

I'm back in the ER Super Bowl Sunday, which is always a fun night. Drunks and accidents!! Whoo-Hoo! I have also volunteered to do the ICU community project. We go to high schools with pictures, equipment and other stuff and talk to the kids about drinking and driving. I feel very strong about that, so I hope it goes well.

Ok, I'm done droning on about whats been going on.... The cop and I have been trying to finish up on wedding plans. No dress yet! But fortunately the new house and Uncle Sam are going to make the honeymoon a lot more fun!

1 Comments:

You make me wonder what hours I've put in recently so I went back and counted.Since the beginning of the year:week hours1/1 - 42 hrs1/8 - 65 hrs1/15 - 43 hrs1/22 - 72 hrs1/29 - 65 hrs+ 40 hours so far this week